Vorsprung

An innovative and lively first-year program, Vorsprung: A Communicative Introduction to German Language and Culture, 3E uses a five-skills approach that emphasizes the acquisition of communicative and cultural competence without sacrificing attention to formal accuracy.

Utilizing "focus on form" activities in an engaging, personalized fashion, Vorsprung helps students develop realistic abilities in speaking, listening, reading, and writing German. The program presents a systematic, clear introduction to the essentials of German grammar and practices high-frequency structures and vocabulary in interactive activities. In addition, it provides students with the cultural knowledge that is relevant to their own lives and then asks them to compare their cultures to the habits and behaviors of the German-speaking people of Europe--thus activating cultural awareness in the classroom.

Thoroughly preparing students for successful communication in today's rapidly changing world, Vorsprung exposes readers to a wealth of spoken and written authentic textual materials, while an array of in-class activities promotes accuracy and provides ample opportunities for students to practice German in current contexts.

About the Authors

Thomas A. Lovik is a Professor of German and former Chair of the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University. He has published in the area of contrastive pragmatics of German/English and issues of the profession in the United States. He regularly teaches Business German, Linguistic Analysis of Modern German, teaching methods for undergraduates and graduate students, and graduate courses on the German language.

J. Douglas Guy teaches German at Salem State University after years of teaching German in secondary schools, community colleges and adult education. He was involved in the development of instructional texts and media for German and Russian programs as an editor and ghostwriter and has been a presenter at state and national conferences. At the secondary level he regularly ran foreign exchange programs in Germany and Austria, and he has supported college students in their interest to study abroad.

Monika Chavez was born and raised in Austria and studied German and history at the University of Vienna. While a Fulbright student in Santa Fe, N.M., she continued her education first at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) and then at the University of Texas at Austin, where she specialized in Applied German Linguistics. In 1992, she joined the German Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her position has allowed her to develop and teach an extensive scope of courses in German language, linguistics, and applied linguistics, with a sizable number of graduate students in the department and related fields choosing applied linguistics/second language acquisition as their area of specialization.